A charged summer. Haven't left Central Oregon since February.
Remind me what day it is? What time do I have to be at work?
I asked you your pseudonym the other day.
It was some German sounding name, your Mom's maiden name. Why do I feel the need to give my writer friend's pseudonyms? Because writer's can't write about writers, they have other narrations going on. It's impossible to write on them without interrupting/writing over their own story. Everyone else is safe I guess.
T asked me to never talk about him, not to sieve him through my banality or romanticization. He felt like I had done such a shit job with everyone else's backstory, with the telling of their contribution to my life. He wanted to be an exception, without interpretation, tell his own story maybe, rather than be one in mine. He felt like I lied a lot, but my excuse is no one ever let's me finish talking. There are symbols embedded in the sentences, the description continues in the exploration of those symbols, but it's true nonetheless and the criticism stands uncorrected.
I make excuses, sluff around my lazy interpretation hoping everyone will fill in the trail of my ellipsis. Make everyone do their own research.

There's a story I'm sitting on at the moment that's exactly like that, I'm not sure how to tell it.
The characters in play go back 66 years and I know the broad brush strokes but not the smaller points. It's cooked into my DNA enough to pick up some of the pieces, and I can act as a conduit in that, but I wasn't there.
I set up my altar. I pray. I ask permission from the ancestors. From my grandmother.
I remember she was a storyteller as well and took liberties.

My Mom started asking questions, writing emails. It was known her mother, my grandmother, had a child she offered for adoption. It was in Great Falls, Montana when she was in nursing school, we had heard. What had we heard?
Stray comments: once, in an argument, my grandfather had reminded his wife, in front of the children, she had had a child in Montana.
Then, another time, my aunt had overheard a friend of my grandmother's asking if she wanted to meet the child, who would've been teens or early twenties during that time.
These were small clues.
My Mom wrote letters to Montana, to people who knew my grandmother during that time. Nothing substantial came back. Grand passed in 2014. Mom and I submitted our DNA to Ancestry last year.
A few days ago a woman, Nikki, pinged me on facebook letting me know her husband had gotten his DNA results back and we were fit genetically to be second cousins.
"Sooo.. this is awkward and I'm hoping I don't open a can of worms.." she had written and the big tectonic mystery plate slid into place, finally.
An Aunt in Montana, and cousins. She had been looking, Mary is her name - was her name, for answers. She passed suddenly, two years ago, not knowing her biological mother (or father?)
The light comes out, exposing something buried but not buried. All these lives living in Montana with this certain kind of blood that runs through me.

Mary, I just learned about you and I'm already not telling your story right.
We wanted to find you.
We wanted you to know that you are loved and held and thought about. We wanted you to know we were looking too, and that we wanted to know you. I wanted to show you my research, about our lineage. I wanted to know if you were witchy like me and Great Aunt Nora or Christian, like my Mom. Did you feel the insatiable desire to discover the world like your biological mother, my Grandmother and Great Grand Father? Or did you like to stay close to home?
What questions did you have of us that we might answer? What answers might you have for us?
We wanted to know you. We still do.
Nikki said you loved horses. You got married in 1974 when you were 20. You had three sons. Your husband passed in 2006. You won a trip to Africa and got married for the second time in 2007. You were "so happy and adventurous in the last 11 years," Nikki let's us know.

The story continues, I'm not writing it, but keeping record. Trying to be accurate.

We make up this lie together. All I need is corroboration.
All I need is a space and bodies. I cast a spell.. Two year ago in the future.
I save the music you post. I bring it into my space and dance alone. I imagine wooded floor spaces, draped in tulle. Other bodies.
We play these songs. We dance. We sing these songs. We dance. We push into each other. There are movements that hurt. There are parts sung too loud. Something is being worked out. To the side, wooded palates piled too high catch fire.
You push into me, too hard. I sing, too loud.

Is a Pisces orgy where everyone leaves their clothes on, touches lightly, speaks softly, and drifts into sleep?
Where everyone dreams of the different ways they'd fuck each other, slowing down space and time to prolong moments of sensuality, knowing the impossibility of this trespassing into reality?

Is the suggestion of this approach enough?

Is it satisfying?

Certainly children cannot be made, but we wonder what is being created.

We touch and tangle and speak into the night, my cold thighs against her warm thighs, his fingers in our hair, fading in and out, losing track of hands, but never transgressing certain boundaries.

Sometimes I laugh at myself. Why is reality so hard for Pisces? Why do we exist so much in this other space, the ether of the imagined, even when we are together? Even when we are so cognizant and aware of the reverberating yes of our connections? Conversing in this lower frequency, the way we do, the voice under our whispers.

When we wander the empty streets, reclaiming some agency over the clamor of the day, finding allowance to be cradled and heard..
We burrow into those places inside each other, letting each other in, and in the bedroom of our minds, exist in an intimacy seemingly untranslatable.


Shyly asking, "Should we crawl out the window?" in the morning, for no other reason than perpetuating my own mystery. Still not ready to exist outside my own myth.

 The one about my dreamboard: Spaces. When I dream, it's in rooms. It's all close up within reach. Why don't I dream in far away?
The one about Dnd: "This winter I wanted to play. I wanted to escape & dig into my imagination & allow stories to unfold."
The one about housekeeping: "We must pull out every single hair. There must be no hair anywhere."
The one about fashion: "In the future, the thrift store will be less open." -3/27/20
The one about gifts: "Would you rather I wake you in the morning with your favorite morning beverage or a bunch of kisses?"
The one about natural dyes: "Take your time collecting."
The one about teachers: "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood & don't assign them to tasks & work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -Antoine de St-Exupery"
The one about my mom: ""In the morning she has tea. She wakes up much earlier."
The one about magic: "& above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest are always hidden in the ..."
The one about singing: “Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don't know what I'm trying to say till years later. Or a prediction comes true and I couldn't do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic. -Florence Welch”

"When do you think an artist's project is complete? How do know when that moment is?" I asked Jamie in early April.
"When it gives you goosebumps or makes you cry. Then you have to cut yourself off or you'll change it again... I always want to edit forever."

I put this goat bell near my workspace. It's a reminder of the imperfect resonance my art creates when it's ready to slip into the world. I always wished I could relate to other artists and that harmonious moment. Maybe the secret angst of artists-in-process takes away from the romance we like to project. Or maybe I am alone in this feeling.

I ring the goat bell because there is no more work to be done, what needs to be said is said, the muse has become quiet. The cover is pasted on and the zines are posted online with a brief description.

There's this sense of control I get to have when in-process. The moment can last forever, with no end. A continuum without expectation of completion. It's not a joy-filled process most of the time, but a dance of holding and letting go. I'm not kind to myself during the work, attempting to tune-in to a certain frequency and emotionally lashing myself when it doesn't sound right. But the work is something in itself and as an artist I recognize myself as more of conduit.

When the work is done, it doesn't belong to me anymore. It runs like a wobbly-legged kid across the meadow seeking a poppy head to gnaw off. I'm its keeper for a time, an overprotective parent with knowledge of a harsh world, biting my knuckles as it stumbles on its own.

Mama tried.

The project I started working on was a series of little one-off zines made by the folded archives of my old gallery prints of The Thread #16. I had folded them almost as a means of containment, keeping them organized with the promise of doing more in the future.
At the beginning of Lent, in late-February, I unearthed the little books and dedicated them to the forty-days, dedicating each day a little zine. Each zine intended to be an exploration on a certain subject I could dig into until it was exhausted.
Because there was no intent of making copies I was excited at the prospect of not limiting myself. I could work in a deep, dimensional way, crafting little pockets of water-colored illustrations and collage bits. I could include scraps of writing in carefully constructed nooks that didn't fit into a conventional essay, or boldly and lavishly print color images and photographs without the need to make more then one copy. I could let this project be a bespoke mess outside the constructs of a black-and-white xerox containment.

These zines came together as I nested myself cross-legged in my studio, surrounded by a flurry of papers, magazines, books, old journals, modge-podge, pens, stamps, and cups that testified to the time range I spent there: coffee mugs, jars of water, and wine glasses.

There's a lot going on right now, I was grateful for the time and space to create through it.

I came off medication in January, separated from my partner, transitioned back into serving from housekeeping, and found myself living with mom and depleting my savings while a global pandemic shut everything down. During that time, a pinnacle of the art-community and a dear friend passed onto the ancestral plane.
Girl Kaycee, as she's known to her friends, was a prolific creator and lived through her work with this inspiring strength and thoughtfulness. Her ability to dedicate herself to a project and see it to fruition was a kind of alchemy to me. She truly created as she lived, there was no separation.

While working on this project I had to remind myself of her boundless encouragement to all of us in the art community. She was known to send an emoji of blowing wind juxtaposed by a blue heart. It was her thing. I had to remind myself often during this project, when shit got really frustrating, that we were creating together. I feel this way towards all my artist friends as we create in our certain spaces. There is no separation.

So for me, the goat bell rings and the work is done. Rather than slipping into the world like a slick black-&-white assembly of pages, it clunks cacophonously like an ambling goat. It has a hand-made paper cover and the pages are thick with layers of things I can't even remember now, and honestly would prevent me from putting them out there.

These are zines are done because they're letting me know they're done. Because they're ready to be in someone else's hands.

Hailey told me purple and yellow in nature can usually be found together.

Jasmine and Oregon Grape within a stone's throw of one another.

Close enough to my house to sneak a few from my neighbor's garden.
Hyacinth and Daffodil.
Violet and Balsamroot.
Dandelion and Crocus.
Amethyst and Gold.

I've been wishing to make bitters lately. It sounds very simple. Add a bittering herb to a high-proof alcohol alcohol and let it sit.
Dandelion root, burdock, orange peel, lavender, and coffee I've heard suggested.
Sprinkle in an effervescent beverage for a nice drink or directly on the tongue to stimulate and aid digestion.

In my personal experience, I've discovered the perfect recipe for bitterness.
I've realized it's easier for me to be bitter than it it to communicate through pain. Holding grudges has become my super-power as some might have learned in knowing me.
Here's the recipe:
Take your pain and bottle it up. Put it deep inside the shelf of your basement and think about it often. Stroke your minds eye over the details of it as you lay in bed at night trying to sleep.

Don't let sweetness in. You can be around it but don't let it permeate you.
If this doesn't come naturally to you, you'll have to practice.
Never ever be vulnerable. Never cry in front of anyone. If you must cry, do it alone. Go in the kitchen when no one is paying attention and cut the onions. All the onions.
Your bitterness might change slightly in flavor in time, but it will never expire or go stale. You can hold onto it forever, perfectly preserved. Mistrust, silence, and self-preservation are survival skills that make excellent bittering agents.

Some sweetness has snuck in recently. Some softness. A strange feeling. The script has shifted a little bit. My strength has always been in my ability to hold a grudge and forgo love.

(Hunger hurts, but starving works)

This is honey.
It's pleasant, this feeling, I've known it from before.
It's hard to maintain.

Left alone, I identify as an acerbic brine.

Recommended ingredients: red onions with a a fresh floret of dill and small palm of juniper berries. 

Ah, purple and yellow. There they are again.

There have been many constants recently. The doldrums of domestic life play themselves into a song which doesn't differentiate day to day.
Days are broken into beverages.
Waking is coffee; french press of medium roast poured into a speckled earthenware cup. After that it's waiting until 7 for wine, or whatever else pops or is poured at that hour.
Between the hours is art  and water, maybe a splash of vinegar.

9.6.19  Tyler's applying for jobs in LA. He tells me I need to write more. Toni Morrison died today. Been watching homages to her on my instagram feed. Shonda Rhimes posted a quote, "If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it." Watching the video of the white woman interviewer asking Morrison if she's ever going to write compelling white characters to which she responded "you can't understand how powerfully racist that question is, can you? You could never ask a white author, 'when are you going to write about Black people?' Whether he did not not, or she did or not. Even the inquiry comes from a position of being in the center." In my writing, I wish to spend time with social dynamics, write the utopian, write characters of color, will characters beyond my own social identity. Writing someone's story, even if it's a fictitious one seems to be stealing in some way. Taking ownership. I will never understand the dimension of social complexity of much else that hasn't been relentlessly pandered to me from the media, or in my own experiences.

Can we talk for a second about what it takes to create?
I have three minutes before I have to go to work. I'm in my Mom's garage cutting out foam-board letters with a cheap x-acto knife. Once I made 26 aprons with a sewing machine won from a bookstore fundraising auction. I was making the aprons for a nonprofit cafe.
One apron for every letter of the alphabet.
The sewing machine needed serious repair but I didn't have the money.
It would scream violently, shocking every cell in my body.
It took me several weeks, working several hours every day with a design I received from a woman in my community, with fabric donated from a women in my community.
When I was done the man who asked me to make them wanted to know if he could buy one to give away as a gift to a personal friend.
I told him they weren't for sale, they weren't for profit, they were for the nonprofit cafe.
He gave it to a friend.
There was $100 in cafe credit for me for working on this project.
When I brought my mother in for lunch one day they didn't have my name on record.
They didn't have any money in the system with my name attached to it like they did for other artists they were working in trade with and the person working the cafe didn't believe me.
So they called up the man who took the apron to give to a personal friend, that made the number of aprons to an odd 25, and they put me on the phone to prove he knew me, and then they let me and my mom order food salted with the tears I cried over for once again being used, not recognized, acknowledged, and then used.
​
Can we talk for a second about what it takes to create?

10:20    Departure from Manteca, CA. Less than a quarter tank of gas. Mom driving, Rachel co-pilot. Erica in the back with Finn.
10:24    Minor, humor-infused kerfuffle about directions. Sorted out, on track.
10:26  476 miles - google maps estimation 7 hour 29 minutes.
Estimated arrival time, 6p/18:00. Estimated arrival time based on guesses from folks in the car:
    Erica - 8p/20:00 “that’s my optimistic guess”
    Mom - 8:30p/20:30
    Rachel - 10p/22:00
10:34    Mom: We only need to plan stops around Finnegan.
    Finn: EaahGHGHGHG
10:35    Discussion about the onomatopoeias of child cries, or how to spell the sounds Finn is making.
10:48    Getting gas, Rachel pays, also uses the bathroom.
    Upon leaving, Rachel: Oh! Look at those pretty flowers over there!
    Erica: You already used up your 15 minutes.
    Mom: (drives away)
10:50   Rachel: How much was that?
    Mom: $47.71, but we can round it to $48.
10:51    Mom: Trip of a lifetime, us girls..
11:05    Status update - driving with cornfields on the right and some kind of pink flower wall on the left in the meridian. Erica is sleeping. Finn is quiet. Mom is still driving.
11:13    Rachel reflects on relationship dynamics in the family.
11:41    During heavy slow-moving traffic because of an accident ahead, Rachel: Think maybe I can run alongside the car and pick flowers?
Mom: Those are the kind of flowers that kill dogs. Or cats. Your Dad told me that.
11:48    Mom: It makes me stick my finger down my throat whenever I hear people talk about their annoying OCD quirks.
11:58    Mom: 155 miles until Redding. I thought it was closer.
12:04    Mom is silently singing “Yesterday,” by the Beatles. They have not once played music during the drive allowing prolonged moments of silence to settle between them as they think their private thoughts.
12:34    Mom: This is probably the longest stretch so far. What time did we leave?
Rachel (referring to minutes) We left at 10:20. 2 hours. I think my body absorbed my waste water. I don’t have to pee anymore.
12:40    They pass by a vintage car being shipped by a newer car.
    Mom: Were those Washington plates?
    Rachel: California.
12:42    Finn stirs, but settles back down.
12:48    Erica reads Judy’s post from Facebook. They all reflect on the weekend.
12:55    Erica: Are you guys gonna be hungry by Redding?
    Rachel: Well, there’s a Grocery Outlet.
    Erica: Think we could make it to Redding?
    Mom: I’ve been a long time driving and my wrist .. (rolls her wrist to demonstrate stiffness and discomfort)
    Erica: I’ll pick up driving from there.
    Rachel (musing on the choice of provisions at every exit): Every place in America looks exactly the same. Taco Bell, McDonalds. It’s not even real food.
12:59   While passing through Sacramento, Mom: Your Dad and I would always argue in the car right here.
    Rachel: What would you argue about?
    Mom: Driving. Me smacking (while she ate, demonstrates the sound of lips smacking while eating). Just directions, basically.
Rachel: Was it more peaceful when you were driving?
Mom: Yeah, because he would go to sleep.
Rachel: Did you like driving?
Mom: Yeah, if he was sleeping. But he liked doing it, so it was fine with me.
13:34    First stop, Olive Pit. Sample peppers and olives. Use the bathroom. Diaper change. Breast-feed. Duration of stop, unknown. Maybe 25 minutes. Rachel finds unripe olives in the parking lot and an unripe pomegranate down the street. Mom warns everyone about sitting on the lawn in the parking lot because that’s where the dogs pee and poop.
13:37    Erica driving, Rachel co-pilot, Mom in the backseat with Finn.
    Rachel: Anyone have any comments about the rest-stop?
    Erica: I wanted to say it was really nice that Mom thought about Bob. (we stopped at the Olive Pit because Bob, Erica’s partner, likes olives.)
    Mom: They’ve changed it a lot. They didn’t have a sample bar, or the place with burgers and shakes.
14:19  Stop at Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA. Walk across bridge, investigate the way it works. Everyone muses about how it cool it would be to see a tightrope walker on the taut cables. Erica wears Finn strapped to her chest. She comments about the oppressiveness of the weather. Rachel stops into the gift shop, doesn’t see anything too interesting. Realizes she looks for lumpy ceramics wherever she goes.
14:50    Back in the car.
14:51    Rachel requests to look at a structure acknowledging a quarry mined for concrete to be used on the Shasta dam. It indicates there was enough concrete used in the dam to make a three-foot sidewalk that could circumnavigate the earth at the equator. Dazzled at the vision of the dystopian concrete structure and the bones of architecture Rachel is simultaneously disgusted at the ridiculous excess.
14:55    Mom (referring to the concrete structure) Was it called the Monolith?
    Rachel: I don’t know what it was called.
15:23    Stop at a large liquor store by request of Erica called “BevMo!” rumored for its insane selection and cheap prices relative or Oregon. Mom gives Rachel $17 for “whatever” and stays in the running car to watch over Finn.
Erica loads up on a lifetime supply of liquor. Rachel doesn’t see how the selection or prices differ from anywhere in Oregon.
    Erica: I remember it differently.
Rachel purchases a large container of tequila with half Mom’s money, BBQ chips, and a sugary green drink for Erica in compensation for one she drank at her house before the trip.  
Erica also buys Mom special Guinness chocolate treats.
15:38    Stop at Chipotle to eat.
16:00   Back on the road. Erica driving, Rachel co-pilot, Mom in the back with Finn.
16:23   Passing Lake Shasta.
16:47    In or around the halfway point.
17:35    Stop at Ray’s Grocery store in Weed, CA for fiery poops from crap Chipotle food and restock on caramel M&M’s. Finn is fed.
    Mom: We almost didn’t leave. There was a man who had a mustache and a sleeveless shirt.
    Rachel: Were you thinking of staying in town and starting a new life?
New car setup - Erica driving, Mom co-pilot, Rachel in the back with Finn.
18:27    Arrive in Oregon
19:53    Gas in Chemult, OR. Erica paid. Didn’t get a receipt for the scrapbook. Start to work out logistics for paying each other back for different things. Doesn’t go very far.
19:59 Erica talks to Bob on the phone. Expresses disappointment when he indicates he is at a friend’s (Peckham) shop helping Tyler (Rachel’s partner) with a project and might not be home when she gets home.
    Erica (not on the phone any longer): If he is not home he will be shunned.
    Rachel to Finn: Hear that Finn. Shunned. When you see your father you must pretend you don’t recognize him.
Erica, in a time before, not recorded in the minutes, reflected on her own OCD nature, predicted the sense of relief she would feel returning home will be overshadowed by some small irritation. Rachel asks her now if this is already the case with being frustrated with the possibility of returning to an empty home.
20:06   Prediction of time based on google maps from Chemult to Sunriver, one hour.
    Erica: Of course I’m gonna get there faster than an hour.
21:04    Arrive in Sunriver, OR at Erica’s house. Unpacking Erica’s things from Mom’s car. Bob and the twins are there. There are train tracks set up in the hallway.
21:12    Back on the road for the final leg.
22ish?    Arrive at home in Redmond, OR
22:58    In bed with Tyler. Trip complete.

Setting: Somewhere between here and there, plummeting South in a dark grey Toyota Camry.
Sunriver, Oregon to Lathrop, California

Cast of Characters
Mom (the mom, 61)
Rachel (the sister / daughter, 33)
Erica (the sister / daughter, 31)
Finnegan (Erica’s baby, 5 months)

6:54 (Rachel, picks scabs)
Mom: You’re going to have to stop.
6:55 Mom calls Benadryl, “Benadeen.”
6:56 Mom says a prayer for the road
6:57 (Rachel notices a hair on her chin)
Rachel: Dammit, does anyone have any tweezers? (no response)
Rachel: (answers own question) I do.. (realizes they are in the trunk. Picks at hair with fingers)
6:58 (Mom screams, startling everyone)
Erica: (realizing she isn’t slamming on the brakes) What?
Mom: I saw a roadkill.*
7:02 Erica: I’m gonna call the hotel and crack some skulls.
(baby Finn cries while she dials)
Erica: Oh, come on!
back story: there was some confusion on the amount of reservations made yesterday.
7:06 (Erica concludes phone call)
Mom: You should’ve gotten her name.
7:08 Erica: The temperature is great in the car.
Rachel: Something to write home about.
7:09 Mom: If anyone needs a tissue to pick their nose.. (while picking her nose with a tissue)
Erica: I don’t need no tissue. (tells an anecdote about the twins with a booger in the back of the car)
7:11 Erica: I’m gonna close my eyes ‘cause the baby’s asleep
Mom theorizes about the fog going through La Pine.
7:13 We all see a man at a stoplight intersection in official roadside gear sitting in a lawn chair and theorize why he’s there.
7:14 Rachel, indicating to small vase of flowers sitting on the center console to Mom: Aren’t you glad there are flowers here?
Mom: Yes, as long as I don’t knock them over.
7:15 They see what looks like a white rainbow-like arc and theorize if it’s a product of smoke, dust, or fog.
7:17 Mom: My headlights are on girls. That’s good. Headlights. (obviously seizing the time for a teaching moment)
7:18 They see another white rainbow-like arc.
Mom to Rachel: Look behind you at the sun.
Rachel: It’s too early (implying exertion it takes to look 180* while in a vehicle)
7:19 Rachel considers doing research on third-wave coffee-shops in the place of their destination but doesn’t.
7:20 They discuss roadside forest thinning practices to prevent forest fires.
7:21 Erica: Maybe Tyler will take Bob to get a good haircut.
backstory - Bob is Erica’s partner, Tyler is Rachel’s. The men will likely be spending time together during the trip.
The women in the car discuss Bob’s potential makeover.
7:24 Erica: I remember shaving his back. (referring to Dad)
Discussion about grooming ensues.
7:27 Rachel, recalls impulsively buying a dress last night. “I promised myself if I didn’t get out of bed to get my debit card I could have it.”
Erica tells a story about buying a “Mama” sweatshirt with a friend.**
7:30 Rachel plays a game on her phone, neglecting her minute-taking responsibilities.
7:47 Arrival into Gilchrist.
Mom: Temperature is 55* outside.
7:58 Rachel drives, abdicating note-taking responsibilities.
8:31 Stop for Erica to breast-feed Finn who is crying. Rachel examines roadside goldenrod which is shorter in the High Desert than the valley. She decides not to pick any. Byron texts Mom’s phone inquiring of location. 30 minutes to Klamath Falls. Mom makes a toy out of a satin-bag with coins. Erica misses an Office reference Rachel lobbed at her when she says “to a child’s imagination that’s Mr. Bag.”
9:28 Klamath Falls. Fills up gas using Mom’s card. Military planes overhead. Purchase refreshments. Clear skies.
Mom: I am always surprised to come to Klamath Falls and hear seagulls. We’re not even close to the ocean.
9:31 Erica contemplates buying liquor in California to get a better price.
9:34 Still at gas-station. Mom cleans windshield.
Mom: Getting them cat prints off actually (tongue-in-cheek comment intended for Rachel)
10:00 Cross into California from Oregon.
10:04 Dorris Produce Check-point (Mom’s note)
11:21 Stopped at Taco Bell in Weed, CA. Smooth drive.
Erica - three soft tacos and Baja Blast beverage.
Mom - chicken-bit cheese quesadilla.
Rachel eats rice-noodles and vegetables in the car brought from home. She uses the receipt code of the purchased items to apply a review online for the chance of winning $500.
Erica: If you win we're splitting it.
Stopped at Vista at Mt. Shasta. Small history of indigenous peoples at post. Land of the Shasta people, Okwanuchu, Northern Wintu, Takelma, Modoc, Klamath, Konomihu, Karuk, Hoopa, Tsnungwe, New River Shasta.
"The Gold Rush", a plaque reads “aggravated relationships with local tribes.”
11:46 Erica: We’re two-hours behind my schedule.
11:58 Erica is driving. There is some doubt from Mom about Erica's driving capabilities.
Rachel: I considered you the most competent driver. (pause) Did you take your pills?
Mom: I already asked.
Erica resumes the drive. Vetoes Mom and Rachel’s desire to wander aimlessly around a Grocery Outlet in Weed.
Rachel (in protest): It’s a different Grocery Outlet!
Mom: It might be a fancy one!
11:54 Erica: I want to learn how mile-markers work. (when asked if she has any goals for this trip)
11:59 They play "Desert Island Films"
Rachel - Amelie, Royal Tenenbaums, and “something in Spanish”
Erica - A Star is Born, Crazy Stupid Love, and Goodwill Hunting
Mom - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, “that movie” (which she details the entire plot of without knowing the name - sounds like a Lifetime Original), and “a Meg Ryan movie”
12:05 Erica: Let’s play MFK
They choose Channing Tatum, Ryan Gosling, and Robin Williams
Mom wants something more relevant to her generation, and suggests “Elvis, Clooney, and Swayze.” Erica muses what kind of social pariah should would become if she murdered Robin Williams. Game disbands without any real conclusions.
12:21 They discuss the virtues and vices of picking scabs.
12:22 Rachel has Tracy Chapman stuck in her head.
12:23 95*, road conditions fair
12:50 Rachel: Are we there yet?
google estimate - 201 mile - 3 hours 10 minutes
12:57 Erica: (still obviously thinking about the prospect of buying cheap liquor in California) What if you had a store and you called it Liquor Hole (chuckles to self at perverted joke)
13:17 Erica: Are we there yet?
13:18 Mom feeds Finn bananas, carrots, and sweet potato puree.
13:40 They stop for a rest In Jefferson State. Rachel orders burger with fries at a place called Big Burger. $9 for burger and fries + tax. Pretty good deal.
Mom: I thought you ate?
Rachel: I needed protein
14:01 Back in the car. Mom is driving. Everyone discusses feeling a heat/car-induced madness.
Rachel: It’s from all the vibrating and not being in a place that’s quiet.
14:31 All is well. Erica is sleeping. Finn is sleeping. They spoke earlier of work gossip, Erica giving character background to people she likes and dislikes. 2-hours estimated to go. Approaching Sacramento.
14:32 Mom: Thinking it would be nice to have a fruit stand (when asked by Rachel what she was thinking)
14:33 Mom recalls a story about Talitha’s love of lemons.
14:48 Mom: (to Rachel) Do you want a sucker?
Rachel: Sure.
Mom, veers into the bike lane using her good hand to get into the center console. Rachel retrieves a Ricola from the center console and hands it to her.
Mom: Not that one (finds another sucker and pops it in her mouth) I’ve been having dry-mouth and was advised to suck on sugar-free candy.
Rachel: Why do you think that is?
Mom: Maybe my saliva glands aren’t working.
14:52 Erica: Are we there yet?
14:53 Ambulance passes creating a wake of cars with some taking advantage of the ambulance to follow directly behind as everyone careens into the bike lane. Everyone in the car is disgusted at this.
15:05 Mom: Are we there yet?
15:17 Erica: Probably want a clean butt, don’t you? (talking to a crying Finn while entertaining him with a coin-satchel which is not working)
15:28 Review of the minutes. *Mom wishes to clarify that there was an animal crossing the road that she ran over when she screamed, not just the sight of roadkill. **Erica clarifies the story about getting the sweatshirt with “Mama” on it and that her friend purchased it for her when she declared she like it.
15:46 Mom tells a story of her and her sister Mandy as boy-chasing teenagers. She had gone on a date with a guy while Mandy had to stay at home and as a gift “he made me a watercolor of some mountains and maybe a bird going through it and he signed it ‘Toomy,’ so I remembered his name.”
Rachel: Mandy must’ve been so pissed (because Mandy was left at the house).
Mom: She was.
15:50 (thump outside of car)
Rachel: What was that!?
Erica is also mildly concerned.
Mom ignores it and continues her story but then later says, “sometimes it does that. I don’t know why.”
15:52 Erica, reading directions to the hotel: Take a left on 462.
16:00 Rachel: is this a piece of your tooth!? (indicating to broken piece of something in the center console)
Mom: It’s actually a piece of a crown.
16:08 Mom parks the car at a dairy compound that looks abandoned save for the smell of nearby cows, steps out, and immediately pees leaning against the car for support. Rachel picks a bouquet of flowers, takes a picture and sends it to Tyler. Erica breast-feeds Finn.
17:00 Arrival at the Hampton Inn & Suites.

En le rêve de pére je fait une illusion de ... I have forgotten the word in French for forgiveness. Actuallement, je pense, c’est une mot je jamais savoir.
God dammit. It’s impossible to write in French with spellcheck on. Qu’est-que la raisin?! Rien, bien-sûr.
The other day I yelled at Tyler. He was frying on mushrooms and had forgotten to check-in. I was livid. It’s a simple story. Tonight he sleeps beneath my leg (I could post a picture but my scabbed mosquito bitten legs are unfit for the webs). Forgiveness was swift and easy. He appeared the day after having tracked my GPS location via my ever-present celluar device and requested forgiveness. I obliged and we’ve only spatted about it here and there since.
The point in which I intend to convey, is the moment in which I channeled my father in the where-the-fuck-have-you-been?! lecture I presented over the phone at midnight when he indeed, did check-in.
Reflecting one the lecture, it checked some (but not all) points my father would use to address us.
- included the phrase, “these are terrible choices.”
- rhetorical questions such as "did you consider that you have to work in the morning?"
- centered around my feelings.

What it didn’t include to compete a Gale Carman lecture was:
- a colorful and extended allegory
- repetition of lecture talking points (my strength of argument is my abrupt and unnatural conclusiveness)
- tough-love/immutable consequence and revoked privileges (we’re adults, our punishment is just in disappointing one another).

What I couldn’t believe, after delivering this sermon, was the feeling of possessiveness coursing throughout my body. Certainly this self-righteous state was something my father too had felt. The rage stemming from a loved-ones lack of accountability. The stress of the unknown. The grief of unanswered phone-calls. It’s so silly, all of it, and so obnoxiously real. All centering around power and control.

My father, the Gemini. Split between two opposing forces. Firstly, his hyper-masculine, which desired discipline, respect. The side that objectified women and saw me as a perpetrator of some evil.
And, secondly - always second, the hyper-feminine, the nurturer - the one who considers with great stress, the way in which women must function in the world to survive.

It came to my understanding I was also exposing this dichotomy. In my speech I expressed all the angst of fear and worry while leaning on the anger of lack-of-control which escaped my grasp. I could not will Tyler to be more in-line with my wishes. He was safe. But the feelings of mistrust still persisted.
The lecture, though brief, played upon all the tropes of my father. And digging into myself, I found many ridiculous motivations, but one of them was love.
It disturbed me to find love there. Where I thought there would only be obsession and insecurity, I found my motivation was also love.
My friend Hailey talks a lot on the concept of nuance.
I fail at conceptualizing nuance most of the time. It evades me with its complicated, colorful nature.
What I am learning to accept is my father was potentially a man of nuance. Like me, his emotions were based in love, though they also conveyed fear, anger, and other shitty emotions. I have to check myself.
In checking myself, I can improve. I know I can do better. Express myself more clearly. Let the love seep in. Let the concern override the fear. Be present for his emotions while honest with my own.
But, in that moment, I did realize, while I love Tyler, my father loved me. It’s a rare development in what is otherwise an angry year of processing my father’s passing. I also realized, early on, he’s not exactly gone. I dream of him constantly and through his delicate strands of passed DNA and ancestral knowledge, he lives in me and my siblings. We are the stars of his life’s constellation ultimately.
I’m still processing. I need more time. But here’s a thought today. That might change tomorrow. That exists in barely acceptable nuance.

 Been working through Layla Saad's "Me & White Supremacy" workbook since the New Year. Every day poses new question meant to be explored and journaled.
White Privilege,
White Fragility,
Tone Policing,
White Silence.
Each topic asking the participant to examine one's experiences and soul, drawing out the stories, conjuring the biases, denying the denial.
"Don't comment unless you are willing to be all the way honest. I don't care about perfectionism. I care about truth, because truth sets us free and makes us better," Saad writes.
This falls into my 2018 proclamation of "Dig Deeper." The work is digging. Mining. Nosce te Ipsum paired with "Know the world." If I can see the roots of my own racism, dig deep enough to the source, maybe I can see the roots of other folks.
Maybe we can follow this thread back awhile, find the first Aspen that sprung from the soft earth that connected all the rest.
Do better.
In my examination about Tone-Policing today, I came across my own role in silencing and marginalizing women of color. Years ago, while unpacking my role in cultural appropriation, making dream-catchers, I sought the council of my friend of Stiletz ancestry. She sent me an email/essay she had penned, exposing her feelings living in a world so bent on destroying and erasing her culture. 
I used the article, in an excerpted form, to tell my own story of apology and guilt about the issue.
The essay itself was cut up, transcribed, and roughly used to assuage my own shame. The article in its entirety I was afraid of publishing, afraid of making my largely white audience uncomfortable, alienating myself from my base of support.
This is more than Tone-Policing, it's further Cultural Erasure and Cultural Hegemony. It's further marginalization. It's "taking some" but not all.
It's not just fear-based, it's power based.
Unwilling to defer my power I maintain a white-washed version of reality.
Soft, shrugging, non-threatening and fake as hell.
Performative justice.
All I can do is keep examining. Keep doing this work. Shift the focus from my shame to my education. Keep going. Keep doing the work.
Listen to the source, keep digging at the source.

This year, 2019 in the Gregorian calendar, is about "Making a Mess." I don't feel I'm ready, and the concept of a mess terrifies the Capricorn Moon of deep-seeded desire for control. But getting outside of the white-supremacist comfort-zone is critical.
What is "Making a Mess" is actually "Cleaning Up," and "Clearing Out."
So far to go.

It's been a minute since I sifted through the old zine collections. The anthology of my twenties. I understand why some writers start when they're in their fifties. Life needs a long time to gestate and settle in to a message. Having my old spun stories is a humble recognition of where I was and an indication of where I am now.
Where am I now?
I follow the same formula. I write about awareness, and being aware of things around that aren't obvious. I write about my Dad and battling with Christianity and I write a lot about trying to figure out what Home is. I write about what my friends are doing and the bits of wisdom I've gathered from them. I want to be playful in my comics but I feel like I never got the voice right. I'm clumsy with humor and want to laugh at people. I set up weird scenarios where I do something dumb, or someone does something dumb.
I want people to point my shit out. I often feel like I send these weird things into the world without much of an echo.

"What next," I ask.
"Go outside and take a photograph of something," the muse tells me.
I take a step out. Take a photo of the first thing I see.
Upstairs, in the space I am living, I'm surrounded by my own garbage.
Josh James' asked me to gather some zines together for his distro and I need the money.
I know that seeing your old work as shit is a sign of personal growth. If you have regrets, if you are embarrassed by the person you were and the things you've done, this means you've learned.
I don't know how artists can continue to stand by their old words.
Last year at the Schnitz I watched Patti Smith perform every song on her album Horses, the exact way it was on an LP. She even pantomimed flipping a record before moving on songs on the B-Side. People had rushed the stage and were standing in the aisle. People were standing in their seats. Clapping their asses off. $60 a ticket for the worst seats. It didn't matter because you could get up and be in the aisle.
Jamie Houghton was there.
Incidentally, her poetry now is in front of me, a hamburger-fold creasing the middle.
It had been buried with other paperwork deemed important but ultimately wasn't relevant enough to stay on the bookcase for years. Everything must be put away at some point.
The poetry is good. I had to track my mind at first to remember who it belonged to. Last we talked she said she hadn't taught in two years. I wonder if she is writing. I wonder if she regrets things she's written.
Making more embarrassing mistakes that will haunt me can be put off tomorrow.
Everything will be put off tomorrow.
Everything has to come out at some point.
"What next."

I'm trying to write today.
The other day at the Goodwill I saw a book by Stephen King about writing, or writing to writers about how to write. There was a picture of a door and window with the sun glowing on it.
I wondered what Stephen King had to say about writing but I didn't pick the book up. My friend Kale had said Stephen King did a bunch of blow and worked in mad-binges of writing, just pounding out thousand-page drafts moving quickly from the space of inspiration and imagination to the page. With the help of uppers.
I knew whatever Stephen King said in this book it was definitely not going to offer encouragement about uppers, though, really, this is probably the only thing he should be writing about.
I think about the advice Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott probably gives on writing. About exploring the world around you with fresh eyes, being always curious and open, listening to nature with your whole heart without judgement. I think about the world and the money they make and why they are in a place to receive this kind of peace. And wonder why they don't just say, "white privilege."
I feel like people don't tell the truth because they don't actually know the truth. Maybe this is an excuse. They don't tell the truth because it takes away their own romantic narrative of what they believe of themselves.
Last night Tyler caught me in a lie. I was telling a story about another Tyler I had dated years ago. In the story it was how I lost sexual attraction to him because he posed in a picture with a pizza box covering his body while eating a giant pizza. In a past story I had said we had never had sex. Caught in this paradox I admitted I didn't want right-now Tyler to hear a story about a past lover and not get caught in the potential feelings of jealousy I might have to assuage. Or whatever version of projected possible feelings rn Tyler might have.
The lie aligned with the version of the self I had, that I wanted to present.
And I know so much of what I will write will be a version. And I know, soon after that version, my vision will shift and it will be different. I will write the same story with new conclusions. New recognition of truth. Confessions of ignorance and misleadings.
The real answer is coke, The real answer is white privilege. The real answer is burn all the books and start again. With a new version of honesty. With some recognition of the lie.
How do I start again when I feel I haven't even started?

The story of my naked body is not mine to tell.
The second I speak about it, it becomes someone else's.
Their version, multiplied, becomes a story for the rest of them.
Right now this is a story of shame.
I don't get a say in this version. It's not mine anymore. 
They say, if there is proof of my body, I can't get a job. When the story is out there, when it is no longer mine, it is a thing of conjecture. By admitting it exists, by it existing, the teaching opportunties go away. It is too awkward to be working with children to have a body. It means I can no longer work with men, because, when the men know the body is there, everything changes.
It makes them uncomfortable and compromises the relationship with the wives.
When the women know the body is there, they have no choice but to stone it to death. If the body is not owned by another man it is even worse. It means the unclaimed body is truly for anyone and no one with a gun can fight against it. 
This is the contract we have with the body these days. 
Sometimes never, I walk with my hips. Sometimes in closed door spaces I am naked. I try my best to keep the body away from the threat of losing the compsure of strangers. Once my mother saw my breasts and hid her vision with her hand.
"You made these," I protested.
"I didn't make those," she said.
A woman's body is Satan's creation and I can't blame the people for the gaze or their avoidance. When I walk in front of my boyfriend, he reaches out. He knows I will not show this body to anyone else and this makes him happy. Because if another man saw my naked body, it would be for sex.
The story of my naked body is not mine to tell.
Once, by the river, where everyone was naked, and we could see men slurping on the genitals of one another in tall grass, we played. We rubbed dirt on our bodies and army crawled through warm pools of sandy water on the shallow island in the middle of the river that we crossed by swimming. We bared our teeth and farted and splashed water with eyes closed. The sun beat down, like from that scene in that book by Camus, the hot sun revealing a wavering stranger on the periphery. For once his story of fucking and breasts and rape was not ours. 
There, in the sun, we were protected.
We told each other a new story and for once we believed. 

"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man." 1 Corinthians 11:8

Alicia and I were talking about goals. We're in her workspace/shop, the manifestation of her dreams made into reality. Sitting around this big table. Shooting the shit. Cutting out shapes of fabric to make into aprons. I'm drawing. 
Cigarettes After Sex posted this soundless grey-toned video of a rain splattered window overlooking a few boats set in boundless agitated waters. Soundless, boundless. "This is what I want my next romantic relationship to feel like," I wrote in the comments. And it is through this curse of vague desire do I hover through an aimless life. Saudade. A vague and constant nostalgia for something that may not have been. For something vague and shadowy in the future. For the nameless and indistiguished present. 
Do I understand the mysterious tension of manifestation? Wish for something, and if the goal is fully formed in one's head it will appear. Be specific? Right? 
There's this line on my hand, the Heart Line. it runs between two fingers. Pisces in Venus. Vague and mysterious, romanctic goals uncertain. 
Mood. Home alone. Harsh Northern windows open to a fierce grey light. Curtains drawn. Been speaking terrible things about my dead father. I just decided to go for it. I want to move past it. I want to revel in the last moments we had together and let them define our relationship more. Forget about the hard times. There were better times. Woke up this morning with the most terrible uterine cramps. Dying. Cold sweats, couldn't move, threw up, laying in bed thinking of my dying father who never saw actually dead. Last moments between morphine and discomfort, forming commands to bring him water and ice. Curled into myself with this rolling pain I connect to him, suffering through colitis in the last four years. I took it personally, the way we were cut out because we could do nothing to help. In my own sharp new transient pain I bury myself. I want my mom. I just want her around. To do nothing rly. Do her own thing. 
In my trivially small example of pain I focused my humilty and connected to the bigger picture. 
Goal-setting. I can't do it. I can't even write an essay that has a singular focus. 

"I will create this space to be a place in which a change of consciousness will ensue. But in the meantime, I think I’m gonna wine out and nap." -Rubina Martini
​
There's this thing that happens. I almost want to blame the moon. When you build a momemtum that all of a sudden flops, or slows, or stalls. You are working towards a goal, checking off checks on the checklist, gathering all the necessary things, breaking ground, making prototypes, getting other people involved, excited, invested. There's groundword laid, and the inpiration is there until suddenly, it just stops. And you stop. And you need to do something else, and whatever you were working towards remains fixed, and then becomes stagant, and then you eventually put the tools away and put the supplies away and rest...
There's this picture of Ruby I'm thinking of. She's sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in her hand staring off into nothingness. In her own head. She bought a house in the last year. Moved in with her boyfriend, now husband. Started home school programming and an artist residency. Gathered things: a loom. Got herself hitched. Now she's resting, and I wonder, what will happen to all the projects set down for the moment? 
"This last week I've hit some new levels of exhaustion/breakdowns. I will create this space to be a place in which a change of consciousness will ensue. But in the meantime, I think I’m gonna wine out and nap."
But what does it mean when you set the work down for a minute? Or for an undetermined amount of time? 
Melanie has left a basket of tools in the living for several months. She's been finishing the windows and only has one left, the one in my room next to my bed. She has two bags of tin cans to turn into something for her room, and the old wallpaper in her room is being etched away to replace with fresh paint. But they sit. For months, a work in progress. And what happens when the work is stalled and never starts again? Where do unfinished projects go to die? 
My unfinished work are these puppets. The due date is April 26th. Have the puppets finished and photographed and turned into a book for them and for all kids with witchy aunties who want to add spiritual spice to their grandparent's Bible influence. Everything sits out, waiting, trying to look fresh and exciting. I want to do landscaping. I want to sew pockets and draw pictures and put together zines right now. I want to do tea readings.  

There's an unacknowledged Christmas tree onstage and a spider  spinning a web on the microphone. "Can I ask about the Christmas tree?" I ask later at the march booth. "Sure."
"What's with the Christmas tree?"
"I wanted something onstage, because there's really not a lot going on. I asked them to round up a couple old Christmas trees and they came through."
It made me think of that scene in Scott Carrier's, "Chasing After Antelope," where Scott Carrier is interviewing schizophrenics for a mental health survey. He's interviewing a woman in a house that feels normal except for a slice pizza that is upside down not the carpet.
"I can't stop looking at the slice of pizza on the carpet. I keep looking at it because it's the only clue that the woman is sick."
The Christmas tree feels like the pizza, an indication that, while everything is tame and expected, and Elverum is singing almost verbatim the songs we've heard on A Crow Looked At Me and the NPR First Listen streaming Now Only, there's a thread of undoing in all of this.
This isn't a normal show, even though it's scripted and abundantly rehearsed. The off-scripted moments feel loaded. The Christmas tree feels like a safe-haven for the eyes. To avoid sharing too strongly the feeling of loss.
I thought of the looks of the people in the hospice house, bravely looking at my father's yellowing eyes, bravely looking into our eyes which were wide and confused. They've been trained for this, so there's some comfort in that, but I know they have to go through genuine expressions of remorse in front of us.
Of course pancreatic cancer is the only link between Geneviève and my father. Today I was reminded of the times he wanted his father to die. The time he left him alone to choke in the bathroom at the Italian restaurant. The time my grandfather was white as a ghost because he had mixed pills with alcohol and how my father drove us away. A calcified murderous anger.
And I've never had a love the way is being sung about onstage. People are here with their person. White Belt Eagle Scout sends an homage to her person in the audience. People use this concert as sweet place to lean heads on shoulders and whisper little things like, "I would die if you died." I can't help but feel they should all be ashamed in some way, because I am alone and Phil's wife is dead and there's a dead Christmas tree onstage and a spider weaving a web and all of them are islands among themselves. Untouchable by the heaviness of this moments unraveling.
Next to me there's a boy mansplaining to a woman she has every right to consume media which supports her paradigm of the world. She wishes she had come alone. In no way does this person enhance her experience. And in this way I know too, there is no one is the world who could sit next to me and offer me any more brevity or depth.
Then I think of Ferranté. What was the pizza on the carpet for him? Such a madman. Somewhere along the Atlantic shore torturing another poor woman. It was stuffing coming undone from the seats in his car. Torn away by Ghost the German shepherd. He would leave her in there all day.
​Ferranté would have had something to say. He lost his wife by cheating though, not cancer. 
Later, in the lobby, I buy both records on vinyl. I've been listening to the albums on Spotify or NPR and wanted to throw money at the house that is being built in Anacortes or somewhere North of here. I want to throw money at the openness and the explaining of a real death. 

"In the National Galley in Oslo / There's a painting called Soria Moria / A kid looks across a deep canyon of fog at a lit up inhuman castle / or something / I have not stopped looking across the water from the few difficult spots where you can see / That the distance from this haunted house where I live to Soria  Moria is a real traversible space / I'm an arrow now / Mid-air"  P. Elverum

I don't cry as much as my face gets wets in grief. It's a secret comfort that I know no one reads my blog. There's a lost journal in the world where I confess I hate everyone. Someone is reading it now, a stranger that perfectly understands. 

My last journal entry was a dream I had with my Dad while he was still alive. This morning I dreamed of being in a tall building on the Westside of Portland overlooking the East of Portland, overlooking the river and the greyness of the world passed that point. Someone had shot a missile and a great black cloud went up, billowing, the way the wrecking yard fire had billowed. The dark smoke hit the window of the building and we knew we were safe for now. News footage showed the soundwave of the explosion knocking a surfer off their surfboard. Maybe they were dead. 
My Dad was there though, and we hugged, and I said, "I guess this is where we are hanging out now," and he didn't say anything and in my waking state I still feel stupid and out-of-touch with reality. I feel stupid for saying something like that to him. I used to rememeber this deep well inside myself which felt things very strongly. I hated it because sometimes I couldn't get out, and I didn't know how to ask or what to ask, for help. 
This dark unrelateable lonely place where things are real.

I'm not visiting my father yet. I'm not talking to him or asking him to connect and I feel bad for this. I'm trying to understand this freedom of being alone in the world without unsolicited guidance. He wasn't always a dad but I've always been a daughter. Now, transforming into something else, unrecognizable to anyone. 

I keep listening to Mount Eerie's, <A Crow Looked At Me,> over and over again. My mom and I drank wine out of coffee cups one night at the Hospice house where Dad lay dying in the other room and I played it over and over again. I now have regrets from that time, things that I could have done. One was putting coconut oil in his mouth so he didn't feel so thirsty when he came into consciousness. Open-mouth junkie naps, they put him on so many drugs to ease the pain. Unable to close his mouth in the sleep. I felt the entire time that I could reverse it from happening if I let go of my anger, but I couldn't, so I didn't, and I let him die. 

Before we knew he had cancer he was sick with a digestive disorder and I would brew cups of tea for my altar, and make blessings, and put photos of him everywhere, and light candles, and ask those in the ether to bless him and make him well. Sometimes I would stop the spell midway out of anger that he wouldn't do the same for me. He would ask Jesus to make me normal, not to make me free. But I'm projecting. And I'm so angry.  

I'm reading through the text messages my father and I wrote to each other over the last year. Our strange back and forth of similar minded musings. In the last month of his life I dreamed he took us on a trip South.
"I just woke up from a dream you were driving all of us through the countryside. We were going to find a place to pick apples but I wanted to harvest California poppies. In the dream you told me you love those flowers." It became me that was harder to love in the end. It was me that wouldn't let the walls down. Too afraid the hurt that happened when I did. The patriarchy is not gentle. It's better to be prepared than to feel. Is this true? I want to bring down the patriarchy for softness to occur. But who have I become in this?
Knight of cups.
I keep asking myself, what does it mean to me that my father is dead, and I know I am asking the wrong question. 
What is the right question? What to ask God when the opening is cracked, letting my father into the ether. What question should I scream into the void? 
Where do you go when you die?
Smoke, all around. My mother hands me a vile of my father's ashes. Dust to dust. The monk crossing my forehead reminding me, "dust you will become." My father is in the smoke erupting from the chimney. The vapors that join the clouds. Why are you handing me this pile of matter? My father is the wind.
He is gone and I'm not sad and I don't know why. 
My walls haven't come down still. I am still afraid and I know this is the key to everything. I stopped drinking last week. It hasn't done much. I wonder if I can feel without alcohol.